My husband is no monster: Kidney kingpin's wife

Toronto: "My husband is not a monster as being portrayed around the world," says the 28-year-old wife of Dr Amit Kumar who has been arrested in Nepal for allegedly running an illegal kidney transplant racket in India.

Poonam Kumar, who along with her two young sons lives in a spacious home in Brampton, told journalists on Friday that she has not spoken to her husband since the scandal broke two weeks ago and that she has not been informed about his arrest.

"My husband is innocent," she said in her first media comments on the issue. "You tell me why would a human being would want to do these things to anyone... My husband didn't do anything wrong."

Clad in a 'salwar-kameez', a depressed-looking Poonam, who was speaking in both Hindi and Punjabi, said: "My life is finished."

"I have great respect for media, but it has pre-judged the issue," she said, adding that she has not left her Brampton home for seven days and is running out of groceries.

The boys have not gone to school since last week as she attempted to shield them from the world media knocking on her door. "I don't know what my options are. I don't know where I'm going to go," Poonam said.

She said her husband was not "the monster he's been portrayed as around the world, but a doctor who just wants to help people in need."

"Everyone is calling him the 'kingpin' and such things, but he didn't do anything wrong," Poonam said. She said the first time she heard anything about his alleged involvement in kidney transplants was from watching news.